Dr. Jolliffe's Boys Part 12

"Certainly, Smith," said Mr Rabbits; "what is it?"

"When you saw Buller getting in at the window by the light of your magnesium wire, did you notice his skates?"

"Bless me!" cried Mr Rabbits; "now you mention it, I think--nay, I am sure I did. They were hanging round his neck. To be sure; why, that tends to corroborate his a.s.sertion that he went skating."

"Will it not be enough to clear him, sir?"

"Well, not quite, I fear. You see, they may say that he might have started to go skating, and met with this poacher, and gone off with him out of curiosity. But still it is worth something, and I shall make a point of appearing before the magistrate and giving evidence on the point. It was a very good idea of yours--very."

When the snow ceased, the boys took brooms with them to the gravel-pits and cleared a s.p.a.ce, which grew larger every time they went to skate on it, some of the hangers-on of the school helping forward the work, for what coppers and sixpences they could pick up. But they were lazy, loafing dogs, and the boys did most of it for themselves. Buller did not go to the ice any more, however; though not expressly forbidden, he thought the doctor would not like it; it would look as if he did not take his position seriously enough. It was for the sake of skating that he had broken out at night and got into this sc.r.a.pe, and so now he would deny himself.

The week pa.s.sed, and Buller again went over with Dr Jolliffe to Mr Elliot's house at Penredding, Mr Rabbits this time accompanying him.

The frost still held, and the boys went skating.

I have said that there was no recognised system of f.a.gging at Weston; yet, when a fellow in the head-master's cla.s.s told a boy in the lowest form to do anything, why, it so happened that he generally did it. So, when Crawley observed:

"There's a beautiful bit of smooth ice under here. I say, you two, Penryhn and Simmonds, suppose you take those brooms and clear a bit of it."

Penryhn and Simmonds acted on the suggestion. After clearing some twenty square yards of beautiful black ice, Simmonds turned up something hard, which he picked up and invoked Jupiter.

"What is it?" asked Penryhn.

"Findings, keepings," responded Simmonds.

"Let's look," said Penryhn. "Why, that is Buller's knife!"

"Ah, ah! how do you know that?"

"Why, it has a punch in it; he lent it me to punch a hole in my strap when we got home from skating one day. It has his name engraved upon it somewhere; there it is, look, on that plate--'T. Buller'."

"Like my luck!" sighed Simmonds; "I never found anything yet but what it belonged to some other fellow."

"What was that you said, Penryhn, about Buller lending you his knife?"

asked Crawley, who was cutting threes on the new bit of ice. "What day was it?"

"The day before the snow; yesterday week, that was."

"What time?"

"In the evening, just before supper, when I was cleaning up my skates for next day. By Jove! I see what you are driving at. Buller has not been any day since, so he must have dropped it when he came that night."

"Of course. Now, you and Simmonds run back to school, find Cookson, who is senior master now the doctor's out, ask leave to go over to Penredding, and cut there as hard as you can split."

The pair were off before he could finish his sentence.

The party a.s.sembled in Mr Elliot's library was the same as on the week previously, with the addition of a detective, who had detected nothing, and Mr Rabbits, who now testified that he saw skates hanging round Buller's neck when he was getting in at the window. The question was concerning a further remand, for the magistrate firmly refused to commit the boy for trial on the evidence before them. "I grant that it is suspicious; he was out late at night when he had no business to be, and that same night a Weston boy was, almost to a certainty, seized by Bradley in the coppice. But if one boy could get out another might, and now it is proved that this one had his skates with him at the time. No jury would convict on such evidence." He did not even like granting a remand, but neither did he like to stand out too strongly against the wishes of Lord Woodruff.

At this juncture voices were heard outside, and presently a constable opened the door and said that two young gentlemen from Weston had something to say.

"Found the real culprit, perhaps," muttered Lord Woodruff.

"Bring them in," said the magistrate, and Simmonds and Penryhn entered, hot, excited, and still panting for breath.

"Please, sir, we have leave from Mr Cookson, and I have found Tom Bowling--I mean Buller's knife," said the former, addressing Dr Jolliffe, who waved his hand towards Mr Elliot in silence, and frowned.

"Wait a bit, my lad, do not be flurried," said the magistrate; "stand there. Let him be sworn," he added to the clerk. And Simmonds took his first legitimate oath.

Then he told the simple story which we know. And when he had done Penryhn kissed the book in his turn and completed the chain of evidence.

It was really quite sufficiently clear, that unless yet another boy had got out, and gone skating on the gravel-pits that night, taking Buller's knife with him and losing it, that he himself had been there as he said; and therefore that he was not in the coppice, two miles on the other side of Weston. Lord Woodruff himself was convinced, and Buller was at once discharged, everybody shaking hands with him.

"And, Buller," said Dr Jolliffe as they left the house, "as I hope that the anxiety you have been subjected to by your own unlawful action will prove sufficient punishment, I shall not take any further notice of your breaking out that night. Let it be a lesson to you, that you cannot engage in what is unlawful without a.s.suming something which is common to _all_ criminals, and running the risk of being mixed up with them."

Which was a beautifully mild preachee to take the place of floggee.

Tom Bowling received quite an ovation next day, and did not know what to do with his popularity. He was ready enough to skate now, but a thaw came, and there was no other chance afforded that term.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A HOLIDAY INVITATION.

A week before the Christmas holidays a boy named Gould came up to Crawley and said, "I wish you would come and stay with me a week or so this Christmas at my father's place in Suffolk, Nugget Towers. The best of the shooting is over, the partridges being very wild by now, and it is not a pheasant country, as there are no woods to speak of. But there are a good many snipe down towards the river, so you had better bring your gun. Besides we will have a day's partridge driving, for there are plenty, if you could only get at them. And there is a pack of foxhounds that meets about ten miles off once a week at least, and some harriers close by. I generally go out with the harriers. We can give you a mount; you do not ride above twelve stone I should say, do you?"

"No, I should think not, but I have not been weighed lately," replied Crawley. "You are very kind, I am sure, but does your father know?

Perhaps he has made arrangements to fill his house."

"Oh no! it is all right. My father does not bother his head about such things; he is perpetually going to London, and thinking of business.

But my mother and sisters want you to come, and have told me to ask you."

"I am much obliged to them, they are very good. And I should like it very much," said Crawley, somewhat more hesitatingly than it was his wont to speak.

For this invitation was rather a hot coal on his head. Gould had courted his acquaintance and he had rather snubbed him, not liking him particularly. He was rich, which mattered to n.o.body, but he gave himself airs on the strength of it, and that did. There are few things more irritating than to hear anyone perpetually bragging of his money, and if you happen to be poor yourself I do not think that it helps you to sit and listen more patiently. And then Gould was an injudicious flatterer; he made the flattered fellow uncomfortable. It is a nice thing, flattery, and causes one to feel good all over, if it is delicately applied with a camel's-hair brush, as it were. But Gould laid it on with a trowel. He only courted success; if anyone were down he would be the first to spurn him.

Now, Crawley was undoubtedly the boy held in greatest estimation in the school: captain and treasurer of the cricket and football clubs, good- looking, pleasant in manners, open, generous, clever at lessons, he was a special favourite with masters and boys, and therefore Gould burnt his incense before him. For to be Crawley's chum was to gain a certain amount of consideration in the school, and Gould did not mind shining with a reflected light. He was not like Saurin in that respect, whose egotism saved him at least from being a toad-eater. Gould was vain enough, but his vanity was of a different kind. But hitherto all his efforts had been in vain, and Crawley had rather snubbed him. This had not prevented Gould from talking about him, exaggerating his merits, and bragging about his intimacy with him at home. It was always "my friend Crawley and I" did this, that, and the other. So that Mrs Gould wrote to him one day asking whether he would not like his inseparable to come and stay with him during the holidays; and Clarissa Gould added a postscript to the effect that as he was so clever he would be of great use to them in their private theatricals.

Crawley was one boy amongst a rather large family of girls; the father was dead, and the mother, though able to live in ordinary comfort, was far from rich. She could not indulge in carriages and horses, or men- servants, for example, and she lived near London for the sake of her daughters' education. So that Crawley had never had an opportunity of gaining proficiency in those sports which cannot be indulged in without a good deal of expenditure, and he looked upon hunting and shooting as sublime delights far out of his reach at present, though perhaps he might attain to them by working very hard, some day. His ambition was to enter the army, not that he thought drill any particular fun, or desired the destruction of his fellow-creatures, or ever indulged in dreams of medals, bars, triumphal arches, and the thanks of parliament, but simply because he might get to India, stick pigs, and shoot tigers.

Shooting! hunting! Gould's words made his nerves tingle from head to foot with excitement. And he had thought the fellow who now offered him a taste of such pleasures a m.u.f.f, a bore, a sycophant, and done his best to avoid him! How wrong it is to have prejudices!

"Well, then, when will you come?" asked Gould.

"As soon as it is convenient to have me after Christmas," replied Crawley. "I must spend the Christmas week at home, you know; but then I am free. I should tell you, though, that I cannot shoot or ride a little bit. I have never had any practice, and you will find me an awful duffer."

"All right; fellows always say that."

"Yes, I know they do sometimes, in mock modesty. But in my case it's a fact, and I warn you, that I may not spoil your fun."

"My dear fellow," said Gould, "you could not do that unless your want of skill were catching. I should be glad if I could put you up to a wrinkle or two."

"On those terms, then, I shall be very glad to come."